International Collection

The international collection has stamps from the Universal Postal Union from more than 200 countries. The collection dates from 1967 to present day.

Here are some examples of stamps made of unusual materials:

Cork Tree, Portugal, 2007Singapore Philatelic Museum Collection

The stamps are made from wafer-thin "paper cork", with a thickness of just 0.35mm. Portugal is the world’s largest producer and exporter of cork. It has the most agricultural land devoted to cork in the world. To protect the species, law has been put in place to prohibit stripping of the tree more than once every nine years.

Lace embroidery has a long and rich tradition in Switzerland. It is one of the most important industries in eastern Switzerland. Over a fifth of the population earned their living from it. The stamp is made entirely of lace material which was created exclusively for this issue. The lace is embroidered using polyester thread on a high-quality, satin-weave, polyester base. It was designed and produced by Bischoff Textiles in St Gallen.

Austria is famous for its Swarovski crystals. It is perfect that Austrian Post collaborated with Swarovski to produce stamps embellished with such crystals. Swarovski is an Austrian company that enjoys a worldwide reputation. It was founded by Daniel Swarovski in 1895 located in Tyrol, Austria.

Half a pearl is affixed onto the bottom left-hand corner of each stamp. Before the discovery of oil, pearl was the main contributor to UAE's economy. Pearls from the Arabian Gulf were harvested by pearl fishing or diving as shown on the stamp sheet. This ancient trade and the pearl industry were threatened by cheap cultured pearl.

The seed of the indigenous Ghaf tree is covered in the tree fibre and affixed onto one of the two stamps. The Ghaf tree is an integral part of the United Arab Emirates’ environment and heritage. The seed can be removed to be planted.

Lunar New Year is the most important festival celebrated by Chinese around the world. In 2013, Hong Kong issued a world's first for this occasion - a stamp embellished with genuine 22k gold lace metal of the incoming Zodiac animal. The other stamp of the pair features the outgoing zodiac animal in silver foil.

Stamps on pop culture themes:

Popular culture such as comics, movies, music etc are featured on stamps. Here are some examples of collections displayed by Singapore Philatelic Museum in themed exhibitions.